为什么中国拥有世界上最多的长途高铁？ [美国媒体]

Why does China have the most long-distance high speed railroads in the world?

为什么中国拥有世界上最多的长途高铁？



Glenn Luk, Invests in China
Updated 9h ago
China is big.
Both size-wise and population-wise.
Population density is high.
The economics of high-speed rail are driven by utilization[1][2], and population density is one of the key factors driving capacity utilization.
At 145 per sq. km, China ranks 27th in the world[3] in population density, over 4x the United States.
If you ignore the relatively inhospitable two-thirds of the country in the west, it ranks even higher — some entire Chinese provinces[4] (i.e. including farmland and rural areas) are denser than large American cities[5].

中国很大，包括面积和人口。人口密度也很高。高铁经济是通过利用率来驱动的，而人口密度是设备使用率的关键驱动因素之一。
每平方公里人口145人，人口密度上，中国位列世界第27位，是美国的四倍。
如果你忽视相对荒凉的三分之二的西方国家，中国的排名更高，某些中国省份（包括农田和农村地区）比美国大城市的人口密度还高。



High-speed rail is a significant upgrade from the existing long-haul bus and “normal” rail lines. Along the spectrum of transportation options, it fills a large gap between bus and air travel.
Land acquisition is relatively “efficient”.
Land acquisition is often the most troublesome or costly part of rail projects. This is doubly true for high-speed rail, where tracks need to be relatively straight in order to achieve such high speeds.
In China, largely due to a lower emphasis on individual property rights, it is relatively easy to acquire the necessary right-of-way for high-speed rail tracks.
High-speed rail was deemed strategic and received priority attention from policymakers.
China knew it was soon-to-be the world’s largest importer of crude oil, half of which is used for transportation. Policymakers wanted to reduce the economy’s dependence on this scarce resource.

相对于现存的长途巴士和普速列车而言，高铁是一个巨大的提升。它弥补了巴士运输和空运之间的巨大缺口。
中国的土地征收相对高效。土地征收通常是铁路项目里最麻烦最耗费的部分。尤其是高铁，铁轨的铺设要相对笔直，这样才可以高速行驶。在中国，由于对个人财产权的强调较小，所以在获得高铁铁轨的通行权上相对容易。
高铁被认为是战略资产，所以能获得政策制定者的优先关注。当时的中国知道自己很快将成为世界上最大的原油进口国，其中一半用于交通运输。所以政策制定者想要让中国经济降低对这种稀缺资源的依赖。



Glenn Luk
Thu · 6 upvotes including G. Arvind Kumar
I think high-speed rail makes a lot of sense for India and the Mumbai to Ahmedabad corridor looks like it would be a good one to start with.
The question is one of execution. If you go down the points I listed, India shares similar characteristics (high population density, pattern of urban/rural development) but it is (currently) lacking in others (lack of domestic technology, difficult land acquisition process, high interest rates etc.). It will need to address some of these in order to build out HSR on a massive scale like China has done.

我认为高铁对印度也是很有意义的，孟买到艾哈迈德巴德之间的走廊适合建设高铁。问题出在执行上。印度具备类似的特点（人口密度高，城乡发展模式），但目前缺乏其他要素（缺乏国内技术，土地征收苦难，高利率等等）。这些问题需要得到解决，否则无法像中国那样大规模建设高铁。